Authors: David Nobbs
‘It was an awful time,’ said Liz. ‘We had no money. We couldn’t go out.’
‘Millions have to live their whole lives like that,’ said Rita.
‘Yes, and I’ve realized how much I admire them,’ said Liz.
‘It’s a start, I suppose.’
‘You didn’t make it easy, Rita. He can be a difficult man.’
‘Really?? Thank you for the information! I hadn’t noticed that! But then I’ve only been married to him for twenty-five years. I had a lovely silver wedding anniversary on my own, incidentally.’
‘I want to say one thing, Rita,’ said Liz. ‘Please don’t blame Ted. This whole affair was entirely my fault.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ called out the bluff Graham Wintergreen. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Please!’
Silence fell rapidly. Graham Wintergreen stood on top of the steps that led up from the bar area to the restaurant area. People on the far side of the chimney breast moved round so as to be able to see him. Rita and Liz remained motionless. Behind Graham stood Harvey Wedgewood. Ted thought that if a photograph of Harvey Wedgewood’s face was blown up to enormous size, it would be difficult to distinguish it from the car park of the Crown and Walnut. Yet the women were drooling over him. He certainly was immaculately groomed. Ted felt that he ought to carry credits for make-up and wardrobe.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Graham Wintergreen, in a voice in which the last obstinate traces of a childhood in Rugeley still persisted. ‘Welcome to the golf club and our racing evening, on behalf of our splendid Theatre Royal, the so-called “Gem of Slaughterhouse Lane”. For those who haven’t been to a racing evening before, it works like this.’ Jenny and Paul returned, free of care and ready for fun. ‘We show you films of six races. You have the opportunity to bet on the tote – that’s me. Fifty per cent of all bets goes to the winners, the rest to our charity. We also
auction off the ownership of all the horses in the race. Again, half the money goes to the owner of the winning horse, the rest to the theatre. There will be a fork supper after the third race, and Brenda’s goulash is never forgotten by those who have experienced it.’
Harvey Wedgewood gave a good-natured grimace in recognition of Graham’s recommendation of the goulash. There was a gratifying amount of largely female laughter, suggesting that the women were looking at his velvet, grey-haired elegance, rather than at old pot-bellied baldy Wintergreen ha ha! Be careful not to look complacent, Harvey, modest acknowledgement of the laughter, almost hear the purr of matronly sexuality, good God, what’s this, old Baldy looks as if he’s about to break bad news or wind or both.
‘There is also …’ said Graham Wintergreen, as if announcing the death of someone whom nobody had liked. ‘There is also a vegetarian casserole, as I understand there are some vegetarians here tonight.’
Paul squeezed Jenny’s hand.
‘Now we are very honoured to have with us a very popular actor,’ said Graham Wintergreen. ‘He starred in the very first production at the Royal, and he certainly seemed more like a literary lion than a lamb being led to the slaughter.’ There was almost no laughter at this beautifully turned epigram, which combined praise of Harvey Wedgewood with a subtle reference to the history of the theatre’s site. Graham Wintergreen felt a spasm of hatred for Harvey Wedgewood, who got laughs just by raising his carefully manicured eyebrows. He had thought he liked the man, in gratitude for his being a boozy womanizer with a fondness for fivers in the back pocket, and not a homosexual vegetarian revolutionary Marxist intellectual. Now he wasn’t so sure. But he was careful to keep all this out of his voice. ‘I refer of course to Harvey Wedgewood. Harvey has come all the way from Princes Risborough to support our cause. So let’s have a big welcome for Harvey Wedgewood.’
There was a storm of applause. Some of the women applauded so generously that their husbands looked at them, so they stopped applauding rather more quickly than Harvey Wedgewood expected.
‘Good evening,’ he said, in a Christmas cake of a voice – rich, fruity, and soaked in brandy. ‘I must say my mouth waters at the thought of Brenda’s goulash.’ There was laughter, although Graham Wintergreen could see nothing amusing in the remark. ‘I am not the point of this Eisteddfod of culture.’ He looked briefly round the hundred and fifty people crowded all around him, and all the women except Liz and Rita thought the gesture was for them alone. ‘The fact that I’ve made seventy-seven films and been nominated for an Oscar three times is of no account tonight. What matters is
you
… and
your
theatre, which I had the honour of opening. I thought I was rather a good Hercule Poirot, incidentally. But enough of that. Go to it. Enjoy yourselves. I hope to meet each one of you in the course of the evening, especially all you lovely ladies. If you wish to purchase an autographed copy of
With A Hey Nonny No,
my slim little memoirs, please don’t feel shy. I shan’t be cross. Copies will be available at the table to the left of the exit. Thank you.’
There was applause, eighty per cent of which was from women. Graham Wintergreen applauded rather too fervently for fear that people would realize that he was jealous.
The moment the applause had died down, Rita and Liz came to life again.
‘“Entirely your fault”?’ said Rita, as if the speeches hadn’t happened. ‘How dare you insult me by suggesting I’d spend twenty-five years with a man so pathetic that he can’t be held responsible for his actions? But I suppose you could never admit to anything as common as being seduced.’
‘Let’s not argue in public, Rita,’ said Liz. ‘We’re supposed to be supporting the drama, not making it.’
‘All rather bad form, would you say?’
‘Well yes, I would.’
‘What
will
people think?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I’ve worried about that all my life. Now I hardly seem to give a damn.’
Liz stared after the retreating Rita.
The moment Liz and Rita were separated, Paul and Jenny steamed in.
Paul tackled Rita.
‘Mum?’ he said. ‘Aren’t you and Dad going to talk to each other at all?’
‘I think that’s rather up to him, isn’t it?’ said Rita. ‘I’m not going to humiliate myself by making the first move.’
‘Oh. No. No. I wouldn’t expect you to. But I think he’s a little worried that if he approaches you, you’ll snub him.’
‘Of course I won’t.’
‘Can I tell him that officially?’
‘Yes. I don’t guarantee that the conversation will be entirely pleasant, but yes – it’s official – I won’t snub him.’
Paul had an uneasy feeling that his mother was making fun of him. Could such a thing be?
Jenny tackled Liz. Her task was much more quickly done.
‘Will you talk to Dad?’ she said.
‘Of course I will,’ said Liz.
Jenny led her over to Laurence, who was standing in the queue for the tote with a faint air of embarrassment.
‘Mum,’ said Jenny self-consciously. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet. Dad. Dad, this is Mum.’
Jenny moved off, well satisfied with the role that she had played.
‘Hello, Laurence,’ said Liz.
‘What a memory you have for names!’ said Laurence.
Betting for the first race was in full swing, and Paul didn’t get a chance to talk to his father.
Ted plumped for number three, because it was his lucky number. Rodney Sillitoe plumped for number five, because it was his unlucky number. The screen was set up on the side of the false chimney breast, facing the restaurant area. The projector was on one of the tables.
Harvey Wedgewood stood by the bar and tried to look loftily detached. The dapper, ageless Eric Siddall was drying glasses with studious intensity, ignoring all life beyond the bridge of his ship. Rita sat with Neville Badger. Liz was with Paul and Jenny. When they left their seats to watch the race. Liz stayed where she was, until she saw that Laurence, who had joined suave Doctor
Spreckley and his nervous wife, was also staying where he was, so that as the crowd cheered and yelled with excitement, she and Laurence would be alone in amused detachment behind the chimney breast, and might even have to speak to each other. So she joined the throng, and pretended to be excited by these animals thundering half a mile over some tinder-dry American racecourse with hard-bitten dried-up little men on their backs wearing ludicrously complicated and clashing colours on their quartered caps and shirts.
As the race proceeded, Betty Sillitoe and Ted got quite excited. They both had a chance of winning. Rita jumped up and down, and Neville Badger gave her an astonished look. Harvey Wedgewood, the actor, had become Harvey Wedgewood, the punter. He was staring fixedly at the screen, and his knuckles were white. It was an exciting finish. The cheering rose to a crescendo. Rodney’s horse won, and he looked sheepish.
‘Well done, love,’ said Betty.
‘Excuse me,’ said Ted, and he set off abruptly across the room.
Rodney gave Betty a meaningful stare. It was quicker than explaining, and he was anxious to pursue Ted. Unfortunately the meaning of his meaningful stare escaped her, and he had to stay to explain.
‘I’m trying not to win,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to rub it in with Ted. So don’t say “Well done”.’
Ted was already halfway across the room. Rodney caught up with him as he struggled through the queue of successful punters, who were already waiting at the tote, even though they were all disclaiming that they had any interest in winning.
‘Ted! Don’t go!’ said Rodney.
‘I must, Rodney.’
‘Ted! People aren’t gloating. They’re thinking, “there but for the grace of God.” I know I am.’
‘I’m only going to the gents,’ said Ted.
‘Ah. That’s a relief.’
‘It will be, if you’ll let me go.’
‘I’d like a word with you, in private.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll be in the locker room.’
‘Oh. Right,’ said Ted, puzzled.
‘One fruit of the grape, on the dry side, you’re a person of taste, madam, an excellent choice, can do, no delays anticipated, here we go.’
‘And one for yourself, Alec.’
‘Eric. Oh thank you very much, madam. Much appreciated. I’ll have twenty penn’orth with you. Why not? Just the ticket. They can’t touch you for it.’
‘Eric? If you … er … if you think Rodney’s had a bit too much … let’s face it, it has been known, bless him … will you give me a signal?’
For once Eric Siddall, barman supreme, was almost lost for words.
‘It’s … er … it’s a bit awkward, Mrs Sillitoe,’ he said eventually.
‘Nonsense. Just … oh … raise your right arm with a glass in it.’
‘Oh dear. No can do, I’m afraid. It’ll have to be the left arm.’
‘Why?’
‘Er … I’ve put me shoulder out.’
‘Hello, Elvis,’ said Simon Rodenhurst of Trellis, Trellis, Openshaw and Finch, as the cynical Elvis Simcock strolled casually to the back of the pay-out queue, as if collecting his winnings was seventy-fifth on his list of priorities and he was only actually collecting them at all for administrative convenience. ‘How’s our great philosopher enjoying life among the frozen poultry?’
‘If you weren’t my brother’s wife’s brother I’d make my highly desirable manual extremity extremely convenient for your spacious breathing and blowing organ.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’d punch you on the nose. I was using estate agent-ese.’
They shuffled slowly forward beside the chimney breast, past a print of an Edwardian golfer bending to pick up his ball on a shingle beach and getting a view right up the blowing voluminous skirts of two buxom matrons. The caption read, ‘Out of bounds!’
Simon Rodenhurst looked pained. ‘This is a false image of our profession, Elvis,’ he said.
‘Oh yes? We’ve got to move from our flat. I went to look at that
place in Power Station one yesterday. You said, “Plenty of scope for improvement.” You meant, “It’s falling down.” You said, “Totally secluded garden.” You meant, “The cooling towers block off the sun completely.” Lies, Simon.’
‘Not lies, Elvis. Sensible rearrangement of the truth.’
‘I’m not thrilled that the only job I can get is with Rodney’s battery chickens,’ said Elvis Simcock, ‘but I work hard and accept that there are people all over the world far worse off than me, and if you continue to make fun of me, you supercilious, snobbish, dark-suited, light-minded, overprivileged, undereducated, overpaid underling, I’ll make a sensible rearrangement of your face.’
Paul gave them a cheery wave as he passed by on his way back from checking on Thomas, who was asleep. ‘Building the family friendship? Great,’ he said. He moved on, barely noticing the sickly looks they gave him. He was wearing a much sicklier look, which was surprising, in view of the fact that an attractive, long-haired, full-breasted young lady with a creamy complexion was approaching him with a broad smile.
‘Paul!’ said Carol Fordingbridge.
‘Oh heck!’ said Paul, turning the colour of putty. ‘We can’t talk here, Carol. Meet me in the men’s locker room in a couple of minutes.’
Faint echoes of a thousand battles between sweat and deodorant eddied feebly around the cold, dank locker room. Beneath the rows of pegs there were long benches, and at the far end, through a wide arch, was the shower room. Rodney Sillitoe wondered if open champions entered places like this immediately after they had been cheered in the crowded amphitheatre of the eighteenth green.